Friday, August 7, 2009

Role Reversal

Last night, a local running club put on a 5 mile race on dirt roads. I run the race most years, but there was no point this year. I'm just too slow and I certainly didn't want to injure my hamstring any more before my doctor's appointment today.

Last year, my wife and son ran the race as well, and while my son wasn't interested this year, my wife wanted to run. My son had a medical appointment yesterday afternoon, so I left work early to take him to the doctor. My wife went to run the race. It's been years since she ran a race that I didn't run, but I was glad that she was motivated to go. I was glad to play Mr. Mom so she could run.

After my son and I got home from the doctor, I headed to the gym for a lower body workout. On my current schedule, my Thursday workout seems easier than my other lifting days during the week. After my warm-up, I did 6x6 of kettlebell swings with short rest, 5x5 of barbell Bulgarian split squats (65 pounds), 4x7 of snatch-grip Romanian deadlifts (165 pounds) and then 4 sets of "dynamic" Swiss ball hip bridge/leg curls, doing as many reps as possible each set (12, 12, 10, 10). Because this workout seems a bit too easy, I've been adding some straight deadlifts at the end. I had the bar set at 165 pounds for the RDLs, so I started there, and did the following:

5x1654x1853x2052x2251x2451x2651x275

Things felt pretty good until 265, which is why my next increment was only 10 pounds and I then called it a day. The 275 lift was my best since I hurt my hamstring in April, and actually the best since I set a PR of 325 in December. I'm not sore today (yet) from this workout.

After the workout, I headed home and started dinner. I was expecting my wife and daughter to be home by the time I finished dinner, but they weren't there. My wife eventually called me on the phone to explain that she'd be late. It turned out that she had finished 2nd in the 40-49 age group (not bad at age 47!), and she had to stay for the awards. She got a small gift certificate to a local sporting goods store as her prize. Last year, the age group awards were bottles of barbecue sauce, so this year's awards were an upgrade.

So, I'm glad to see that there's still one runner in our family, even if it's my wife instead of me.

Because of the race, my wife wants to delay her long run this weekend until Sunday. So, I'll probably ride my bike for a few hours tomorrow and then run with the real runner in our family on Sunday, if I can keep up.